The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday that hundreds of billions of dollars would have to be cut from Medicaid if Republicans want to achieve their goal of slashing $2 trillion from the federal budget.
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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed on Wednesday what Democrats have been saying all along: Republicans will have to cut Medicaid if they want to achieve the $2 trillion in “savings” over the next decade that they outlined in their budget.
Of that money, $880 billion was supposed to come from programs under the jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee. There is just one problem with their plan: Not counting Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), those programs only add up to $381 billion over that time.
In addition, CBO also stated that $245 billion of that total has already been paid for, which means that the net spending for all other programs, i.e., those from which savings might come, totals $135 billion.
In other words, the bulk of those cuts would have to come from one of the popular health insurance programs.
This finding from the experts both Democrats and Republicans rely on to “score” their legislation is at odds with Donald Trump’s stated goal of not touching entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
On Wednesday, the president once again said as much. However, he also stated that he believes that these savings can be achieved through eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.
This is also the argument that other top Republicans, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), are making.
However, there is no evidence that this is possible.
In addition, Republicans want to offset some Medicaid spending by instituting work requirements for beneficiaries. That would amount to $120 billion in “savings” and could result in millions of beneficiaries losing their coverage.
Democrats pounced on the report.
“The reality is the only way Republicans can cut at least $880 billion within the Energy and Commerce Committee’s jurisdiction is by making deep, harmful cuts to Americans’ health care,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the committee’s top Democrat. “Republicans know their spin is a lie, and the truth is they have no problem taking health care away from millions of Americans so that the rich can get richer and pay less in taxes than they already do.”
Republicans say that they want to “make Medicaid work for the most vulnerable.” While that sounds nice, Democrats argue that what this really means is that they want to take it away from less vulnerable Americans… all to give that money to the least vulnerable ones.
“This is a complete betrayal of the middle class, and Democrats will keep fighting to stop them,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA), the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, who had requested the CBO analysis together with Pallone. “The American people deserve to know just how much pain Republicans are willing to inflict on their own constituents to reward their billionaire donors.”
